13 July 2006 10:11 AM

Reinforcing failure

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

I will not let go of this. Anthony Blair and his latest Defence Secretary Des Browne should not be allowed to forget that they ordered British troops into Afghanistan for political reasons, that they have no military or political case for being there, that they have once again sent brave men into battle with inadequate equipment and the British lives which will undoubtedly be lost will be on their consciences. The increase in troops just announced will simply increase the number of targets for the Taleban without making success any more likely. How will we know when we have succeeded anyway? No proper objectives for this mission have been provided.

A contributor last week chided me for my lack of geo-political knowledge, saying that perhaps there were good reasons for our Afghan deployment. He said "Perhaps he (me) might start by asking himself why a wish by Great Britain to maintain a close relationship with the United States is necessarily "sucking up" to the Americans. Could there possibly be some weightier reason than is captured in this schoolboy language? Could there not be larger forces at work, larger matters at stake, in that region of vital strategic importance than Mr. Hitchens wants or is able to see? Is it all too far away for him to expend the effort?"

Not at all, though it seems to me that those who send and command soldiers have more need to make the effort to explain what lies behind their decision than do those who oppose the deployment. And the point I made was that in a lame Commons performance the junior minister who bothered to turn up could not meet demands for such an explanation from one of the few MPs who is in fact an experienced soldier.

As for geopolitics, I am more or less certain that my grasp of the subject is better than the Prime Minister's, whose knowledge and understanding of history and geography are notoriously feeble. If there are 'larger matters at stake', what exactly are they? Those who would risk the lives of other men's fathers, brothers and sons seem to me to have a duty to say, rather than just looking serious and mysterious and expecting us to believe (against all available evidence) that they secretly know what they are doing.

I have dealt elsewhere with the ridiculous fantasy that Afghanistan is some kind of world headquarters of jihadist terrorism. Anyone with any knowledge of this terrorism knows that it is many-headed and has many different sources, usually operating quite independently in the countries where it is to be found. And much of its ideological support comes from within countries which are officially our friends and which we are certainly not going to invade, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of its most potent bases is of course in Iraq, where our ill-judged intervention (which failed some time ago and whose withdrawal is merely a matter of time) provided opportunities for several different fanatical factions to gain far more influence than they had before.

And those who have cheerfully accepted our recent co-operation and alliances with sordid, brutal and barbaric warlords in Afghanistan will have to explain to me how this differs morally from the time when we supported and supplied Saddam Hussein. This is presumably a policy they must by implication now disown, since they cite his barbarity as the main reason for overthrowing him.

Clever geopolitical experts also need to explain this to me: in Iraq we intervened to depose Saddam, whose repression crushed the very Islamists we claim to be fighting. Thanks to our intervention, previously emancipated Iraqi women must now go about veiled, and must cower at home for fear of violent attacks by fanatics similar to the Taleban.

Yet we allege we have intervened in Afghanistan to crush the Islamist fanatics who force women to go about in veils and cower at home.

Geopolitical experts can perhaps show me (in schoolboy language if necessary) why British and American soldiers are risking their lives in different Muslim countries with diametrically opposite results, or at least purposes. And before going on about the supposed blessings of 'democracy' which they have brought, they might also tell me how long they would expect the artificial and largely imaginary 'democracies' in either country to survive once they ceased to be propped up by American bayonets.

As for the primacy of the Anglo-American alliance, I would like to ask just how much harm it would do to our relationship if Britain occasionally said 'no' to the USA. Harold Wilson quite rightly declined to get involved in the Vietnam war, and we seem to have remained friends. If I were an American I wouldn't respect or trust an ally who always did as he was told. There will be life after this President, and it will not necessarily do us much good with his successor to appear to have been in George W.Bush's pocket.

Share this article:

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Peter Hitchens has touched upon several issues worthy of a rebuttal - though most are the usual right-wing, fundamentalist Christian (i.e., totally un-Christian), pro-Zionist claptrap that now dominates "critical" opinion in much of the media - and therefore do not deserve a rejoinder. But at least, unlike most of his colleagues, Hitchens does in fact acknowledge that, like every other race, Jewish people are CAPABLE of doing abominable things to others. His fellow right-wing commentators (Melanie Phillips, for example) would never concede such a basic point: Even a deliberate kiiling of children is well-desrved, in her view, because the Jews can do no wrong. So, well done, Peter!

No objective commentator would deny the suffering of the Jews (and of the Gypsies, the Poles, homosexuals, the disabled, communists, etc). Indeed, it was precisely due to this very fact that the international community pledged (in form of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) that such abominable crimes should NEVER AGAIN be allowed to happen. Of course, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur have made a nonsense of that solemn pledge - and it is a serious indictment on us all that these other atrocities have not been denounced with the same degree of vehemence with which we condemn Israel's conduct. The entire Arab world, for example, has remained silent over Darfur.

Nevertheless, what makes Israel so open to condemnation may not be naked racism, as Hitchens suggests, because this would ignore the simple fact that of all the noted atrocities, Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people seems the most gratuitous: A very simple solution has been proposed by the world's only final legal (and moral) arbiter, namely the United Nations. Yet, Israel has treated this with undisguised contempt at every opportunity. Some of the measures adopted by the Nazis (e.g. collective punishment, forced expulsions, the use of "settlements," and various other cruelties) have been inflicted on the Palestinian people. Peace activists have been murdered. Indeed, as Hitchens has noted, a man who assassinated a UN peace envoy was later ELECTED into high office. And all of these by a people whose suffering led to the adoption of the UN Charter and various human rights instruments?

The British Armed Forces are fantasically professional and disciplined. It's tragic that the British Government hasn't got the slightest idea what they are doing in Afghanistan. Fighting the Taliban with a well-meaning Liberal Democrat nation building programme is like offering flower-power to Genghis Khan. These New Labour morons haven't got the faintest idea about human nature.

Even if we had the will to put in the necessary force to beat them in Afghanistan, it still wouldn't work. The Taliban don't stop at the border. Pakistan and its security services and Army are full of double agents and Taliban sympathisers. Fighting in Afghanistan and not Pakistan is like excising half of a cancer. There is no point. It is still there, and spreading.

All we are doing is creating more enemies, wasting more British lives and resources and demonstrating to Al Quaeda, the Chinese, the North Koreans and Iranians just how impotent we really are. It is bringing forward the day when we really do get a kicking from a serious enemy.

Our proper job in Afghanistan was to go in hard and fast with a punitive mission to demonstrate that support for our enemies is not acceptable. this would have acted as a deterrent to others around the world and would not have turned us into doomed liberal imperialists.

Highly courageous? Hhhmmmm. Not something I'd associate Blair as being. I too would be impressed if he could show a bit of his supposed courage when defending British interests (ie rebate surrender, no CAP, CFP reform etc etc)from the never ending demands of the EU, or showing a bit of backbone when dealing with the IRA, thereby showing us some of this "revulsion" we're always being told he feels every time an act of barbaric terror occurs. The only courageous British people who are involved in Iraq are those who have been sent there, lacking proper equipment(thanks Tony) and have to deal with enemy fire every day. Praise should be saved for them, not some cheap fraud who hasn't the courage to even honestly explain why we went there in the first place. He certainly would not have had the courage had we a decent opposition who opposed his actions. When everyone is always on your side, including those who are supposed to be opposing you, it's easy to feel brave, and taking freebie holidays in order to get away from any critism that does come up is not the same as being in the front line in Iraq.

Bush and Blair were right to go into Afghanistan and right to go into Iraq and are right to still be there now. Mullah Omar, Bin Laden's protector, and his Taliban thugs represented a real and fertile threat to the West post-9/11 by their untrammelled existence and by their total sympathy with Islamophobia. Very powerful message to say: hiding in the hills and aiding our enemies won't help you, we will take out your fighters and we can take out your country. Regarding Iraq, I find it hard to understand why getting rid of Saddam is being described as a bad thing. A loathsome dictator is gone, his people have the chance to seize democracy on their terms. The fact that the usual monsters are out there trying to stop it shows you it's a worthwhile endeavour. Zarqawi described democracy as the biggest threat to the jihad... and we are doing the wrong thing? Bush and Blair are right and their decisions were and remain highly courageous.

Troops en route to Afghanistan I have understood expected to move in and out (mostly in) of Iran so their presence there as with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon may have little to do with the initial obvious objective.

The USA needs a much more defensible reason to invade Iran than in 2003 Iraq; Iranian reaction to Israel's aggression could be classified by Bush as one and Blair will follow.

Occupation in Afghanistan does block any supply from the East and India being welcomed to the USA Nuclear Club has hallmarks of serious 'glad-handing' ahead of some new Bush adventure.

Afghanistan in every other way is merely a graveyard for 'superpowers' which we should remember from our earlier bloodied experiences.

Unlike the US Congress and Senate neither of which are dependent the UK government is wholly dependent upon the Prime Minister for its briefings concerning the proliferation of Bin Laden and his forces in Afghanistan and the existence and quality of WMD posessed by Iraq. Mr Blair has presided over a wanton dearth of information which has had the effect of misleading Parliament into mobilising our armed forces.

Thanks to Bush and Blair, the UK is now party to occupying two other sovereign states. The military forces of which posed no discernable threat to UK or US sovereignty and or the welfare of our peoples or that of our United Nations colleagues our NATO allies or our EC partners. The overwhelming majority of which consistently questioned the effectiveness of intelligence and the legality of such a military campaign.

If, Malfleur, you feel Bush and Blair have and continue to have sound reasons for this mobilisation. You are welcome to defend their conduct. I for one will not give them and their supporters such opportunity, and look forward in future to the ever increasing probability members of the Bush and Blair Administrations will one day face impeachment.

Do the "Scots" have a penance reason, for starting conflict and wars, it seems to me that since this Scots led Government, that war is allways paramount in their doctrine,I have never known this Country to be involved in so much pointless hostility, you have to ask yourself why are we constantly being duped by this self serving Tartan Mafia.

Don't forget that Tony Blair has never made much money as Prime Minister and owes millions. But when he retires, just like John Major, he will receive a fortune for his autobiography and for a lecture series in the US. He will also - like Major - get a nice job from a multinational group backed by US money. Is it really a surprise that he curries favour with the US?

Mark writes "this prerogative exists purely to defend these shores only". Well fine, but what does that mean exactly? Mr. Hitchens has not attempted to answer the question, which is the ground of my complaint and nor has Mark.

What we should know is that it does not mean lining all our military force up in England no farther forward than Dover Beach and waiting for someone to come at us.

Mr. Hitchens tries to cover his rear by arguing that as someone who opposes the deployment he has less need to explain the reasons for it than those who support it. That seems to me a non-sequitur. If Mr. Hitchens were to go looking, he could find a coherent case for deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he does not wish to. He tells us that he believes he has a better grasp of geopolitics than Mr. Blair (which may be true)and, by implication, the military and civil servants who advise him - that may again be true because they no doubt fall into his category of "clever geopolitical experts". There is a view that "clever" for the Englishman - possibly of the patriotic variety- is a pejorative word meaning something along the lines of "smarty-pants" or, in schoolboy language, "clever clogs", as in "too clever by half" or "too clever for his own good". Mr. Hitchens is therefore signalling to us that geopolitical experts who do not agree with him are stupid.

This would be all well and good if Mr. Hitchens, or Mark, were to spell out for our enlightenment where British interests in the region dictate that British forces should be, why they should be there, in alliance with whom and against what countervailing interests so that we could judge for ourselves whether those experts are 'clever" or not - and they might persuade us to his view. They prefer however, rather than to expend some time in study and thought, to dismiss the policy of the government in that strategically vital part of the world as, to sum up, not in the British interest, full stop, and good night children everywhere. Geopolitical considerations anybody? No thanks, I don't smoke.

There is more to it than that and although Mr. Hitchens probably things he is wrestling with the power of the State in his articles, it is in fact his Daily Mail readership that needs persuading and which is owed at least the setting up of the best arguments for the military and diplomatic deployment if only to have him knock them down again. Perhaps however he thinks he has done that in which case he would appear to be at one with Mark who thinks defending Great Britain's shores can be done from the shoreline and that there are no people further away than than who wish us or can do us ill. We may never know...

Spot on Peter our troops are truly lions lead by a political donkey.Maybe the first flight of Blairforce one should be to Afghanistan to explain to the poor lads why exactly they are there,and what are their
objectives.Then if time in between holidays permits he may come here and explain to us the voting public of the UK ,shortly to be the ex UK, why he has sent our troops to war AGAIN.

A wise man (or was it a woman) once said that they hated war because the outcome was so uncertain. This is of course why most intelligent statesmen try to avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary - you can never be absolutely sure who's going to win. I was wondering Peter, if you had any insight into why it is that Bush and Blair seem to think that this principle does not apply to them? Why is it that they alone in the world believe that their wars will always end triumphantly? Because surely no statesman, intelligent or otherwise, would keep fighting after the prospect of victory has evaporated. And does anyone actually believe that our troops can 'win' in Afghanistan?

Unfortunately, I don't think that the reptiles that make up the Blair administration have a conscience for the guilt to weigh on.

The 'larger matters at stake' must relate to the diabolic New World Order they are trying to create but they dare not speak openly on this subject. If the New World Order is such a great concept - why all the secrets and lies?

I don't think they are planning to leave Afghanistan or Iraq - look at all the bases that are being built. I am certain that the Blair administration are pathological liars and self-serving traitors.

The existence of a Prime Ministers Royal prerogative is the mechanism by which the UK has become involved in these war zones, and any true British patriot should be able to accept without question, enumeration and analysis, that this prerogative exists purely to defend these shores only. We can't really expect our PM to say, analogously, of course:

“I have unilaterally invoked my Royal prerogative as PM to sanction our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq because the US is governed by my best mate George and he wishes this of me. You know – you guys, I do have a £4million mortgage to pay. So I must keep on good terms the Whitehouse if I want to be popular with Americans. So when I do eventually leave office, I can make lots of lovely dollars on the US celebrity lecture circuit”

It is simply not possible, for those who oppose the UK’s current deployment of military resources in US sponsored war zones, to effectively counter the rational of our government in approving such. When it is the case the government will not present as it should present its proper justifications for getting us involved, because there is nothing to declare – zero, zilch!

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the moderator has approved them. They must not exceed 500 words. Web links cannot be accepted, and may mean your whole comment is not published.